Suspicious WMIC XSL Script Execution

Identifies WMIC whitelisting bypass techniques by alerting on suspicious execution of scripts. When WMIC loads scripting libraries it may be indicative of a whitelist bypass.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

winlogbeat-*
logs-endpoint.events.*
logs-windows.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 21

Runs every: 5 minutes

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Defense Evasion

Version: 2 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.10.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 7.12.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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sequence by process.entity_id with maxspan = 2m [process where
event.type in ("start", "process_started") and (process.name :
"WMIC.exe" or process.pe.original_file_name : "wmic.exe") and
process.args : ("format*:*", "/format*:*", "*-format*:*") and not
process.command_line : "* /format:table *"] [library where event.type
== "start" and dll.name : ("jscript.dll", "vbscript.dll")]

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: XSL Script Processing
- ID: T1220
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1220/

Rule version history

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Version 2 (7.12.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence by process.entity_id with maxspan=2m [process where
event.type in ("start", "process_started") and (process.name :
"WMIC.exe" or process.pe.original_file_name == "wmic.exe") and
wildcard(process.args, "format*:*", "/format*:*", "*-format*:*") and
not wildcard(process.command_line, "* /format:table *")] [library
where event.type == "start" and file.name in ("jscript.dll",
"vbscript.dll")]

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